Miami-Dade SOE endorsed delay of search for noncitizen voters

Miami-Dade Supervisor Penelope Townsley agrees with the decision by Secretary of State Ken Detzner to delay the next round of searching for noncitizens on the voter rolls, said her spokeswoman Christina White today.

Detzner announced his decision to delay today as a result of the Department of Homeland Security revamping the database that he planned to use to verify if voters on the list are ineligible. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security started to revamp SAVE in February and won't be done until 2015.

“From the very beginning we always felt and understood our statutory obligation is to remove ineligible voters from the rolls and will continue to do so,” White said. However, “we always wanted it to be a more credible and reliable list -- that’s what we have been waiting for. Now that they said they will delay it we will pick it up when they decide to finish the list.”

Several groups that support voting rights -- including the League of Women Voters and the Advancement Project -- had been critical of the "purge." They have said the state-led purge disproportionately hit minorities, snagged those who could legally vote -- including a Brooklyn-born World War II vet in Broward -- was ineffective and a waste of money.

“What we have seen from past efforts it has not been successful in identifying ineligible voters,” said Deirdre Macnab, president of the Florida League of Voters. “Of course the League believes and always believes only eligible voters should vote but the process we already have in place -- supervisors work every day, all day to clean our lists and keep them up to date -- shows the current process is working very effectively. .... Micromanaging by the political appointee Secretary of State position was shown to be ineffective in fact in uncovering ineligible voters.”

Here is our earlier post about Detzner. He has sinced issued a press release verifying that he has decided to delay "Project Integrity."